Go, Ivy, Go! (29 page)

The chandelier crashed. Grandma, standing directly under it, crashed too, instantly entangled in wheel, chains, and copper-shaded bulbs. The wheel caught Sam on the shoulder and he staggered backward.

I was so astonished, I just stood there. But Tasha wasn’t as frozen as I was. She threw something too. Her shoe. I don’t think she aimed for Sam’s most delicate masculine area, but that’s where the shoe hit. He doubled over even as he pulled the trigger again.

A scream. Me? Yeah. But other screams too. MaybeTasha. Maybe Grandma. Maybe Sam had a high-pitched scream of his own, considering where the shoe had hit.

I had a micro-thought about trying to grab Grandma’s gun while she was incapacitated, but Sam, even with his nose gushing blood and his body bent from the shoe attack, was still shooting. He got a hit on one of the tin can lids in Elvis’s frame, and Elvis crashed to the floor. Whatever happened to the good ol’ six-shooter, where the bad guy ran out of bullets?
This guy must be using a clip with fifteen or twenty bullets.

The glass-topped coffee table shattered. Stuffing blasted out of the sofa. Tasha threw again. This time it was the carton of leftovers. A medley of vegetables in sauce flowered in Sam’s hair and ran into his eyes. He howled again.

“Run!” I yelled.

It wasn’t until I blasted through the back door that I realized Tasha wasn’t right behind me. I stopped short.

She must have run out the front door. Or maybe she was trapped in there with trigger-happy Sam. Or maybe she was shot!

I turned and stumbled back toward the living room.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Grandma Braxton was still on the floor, frantically trying to untangle herself from the web of the chandelier and, as far as I could tell, only enmeshing herself deeper. I couldn’t see any injuries on her, but blood was splattered everywhere.
On her. On the walls. On the floor. It had to be Sam’s blood, didn’t it, from where I’d hit him on the nose with the mannequin’s head? But a heavier stain of blood soaked the sofa where Tasha had been sitting.
Had she been hit? Where was she? Where was Sam?

Grandma let loose with a string of words I hoped she never used around Beth. “Get me out of here!” she screeched. A portion of vegetable medley decorated her hair too.

I winced when she targeted me with another torrent of un-grandmotherly words, but I wasn’t about to do the good-Samaritan thing and help her out of the trap she was in. I grabbed my cell phone and stuck it in my pocket. On second thought, I also snatched up the gun that had flown out of Grandma’s hand.

Now what? I hesitated for a moment. Run out the front door? That’s where Tasha must have gone. Sam wasn’t exactly in good running shape after both the mannequin and shoe incidents, but he must have hobbled out after her.

So what should I do? Follow Sam outside? Get in a
High Noon
shootout with him?

Yeah, right. I may have Grandma’s gun in my hand now, but I had no idea how to use it. It wasn’t like the only handgun I’d ever shot a long time ago. On it, you pulled back a hammer to cock it, then pulled the trigger. This one didn’t even have a hammer.

One of these days I’m going to take shooting lessons. Learn all about guns. Become a sharpshooter. Maybe learn that Krav Maga attack and defense stuff too. Good intentions, should I live to need these skills in the future, but no help at the moment. But I didn’t let go of the gun. I stuck it where the guys on TV always stick a gun, under the waistband at the back of their pants. At least, if Grandma got loose, she couldn’t grab her gun and start blasting. I headed for the door to the back yard in case Sam came back and caught me there without another mannequin head for ammunition. I’d call 911 and then run around front and find Tasha.

The total blackness of the back yard stopped me short when the door slammed behind me. No light seeped around the heavy drapes in my bedroom. No glow of streetlight filtered through the heavy trees and hedge. No moon or stars shone in the smidgens of cloudy sky between trees. Okay, that was good. Sam couldn’t see me back here. I’d just call 911—

A shot. From where? Going where? Was Sam shooting at Tasha out on the street?

I scrambled toward where I thought the gate in the hedge was located. Beware the purple cow! It was back here somewhere. I missed it but crashed headlong into a living, moving body.

“I-I have a gun.” I tried to sound menacing. I stuck the cell phone out in front of me in gun mode. But it’s hard to sound menacing when you’re stammering. And your cell phone is a little short on bullets.

“Ivy, it’s me! Tasha. Don’t shoot!” Tasha whispered frantically.

Unnecessary advice, since all I had in hand was the cell phone. The gun was still rolling around inside my sweat pants. And I didn’t know how to shoot it anyway.

“Where’s Sam?” I whispered back.

“Looking for me.
I was trying to get to Magnolia’s, but I-I was afraid I couldn’t make it. So I ran back here to hide from him.”

“I know you’re back there.” Sam’s voice roared from the far side of the hedge. Hopefully he didn’t know about the gate. Two shots followed. Random shots, but you can be just as dead from a random shot as a deliberately aimed one. Sam seemed to have forgotten Grandma’s warning about gunshots being heard by neighbors. She might not like that. Although she’d no doubt approve his aggressive display of family loyalty. Another shot pinged on something metallic in the yard.

“Get behind a tree,” I whispered to Tasha. “I’ve got my phone. I’ll call 911.”

But I instantly realized I couldn’t do that. I’d long ago found that as an LOL I am mostly invisible to much of the younger world, and Tasha and I were both nicely invisible here in the dark of the back yard. But as soon as I flipped the phone open and pushed the power button, that light from the screen, faint though it was, would shine like a thousand watt candle in the dark back yard. And then, no more invisibility.
Sam’s shots would target us with Lone Ranger accuracy. Okay, I’d put the phone under my shirt to hide its glow and punch in the numbers under cover.

Another shot. Was there such a thing as a 50-bullet clip?

I didn’t want to get separated from Tasha, but we had to move. I grabbed her arm. She let out a gasp and so did I. Her arm was wet and sticky.

“You’re bleeding!”

“One of the shots hit me. But I’m okay! Just a little . . . woozy.”

No wonder she couldn’t make it to Magnolia’s. I put an arm around her waist to help her along and felt our way with my other hand. I clattered into the wheelbarrow holding a stockpile of parts for Eric’s junkyard sculptures. The noise brought another shot. It pinged against the wheelbarrow. I pushed Tasha behind another tree. She sagged against it.

“We need to get you to a doctor!”

“I-I’m okay.”

“You can stop acting now,” I whispered fiercely. “You’re
not
okay.”

Lord, we need your help!
My hand shook as shoved the phone
up under my T-shirt. I fumbled it open and ran my finger down to the power button. I fingered the numbers beyond the power button but I’d never paid any real attention to how they were arranged. I punched in three numbers I thought were 911, but nothing happened. I tried again.
More nothing.

Change of technique. I snapped the phone shut and then scrunched the t-shirt up over my head. That exposed my not-exactly-svelte midsection, but this was no time to worry about irrelevant details. I opened the phone under cover of the T-shirt. I thought I’d be able to see the numbers, but there’s not a lot of room to maneuver inside a t-shirt. The numbers were right in front of my nose. I tried to keep my eyes from crossing as I focused on them. It worked! A 911 person answered.

I whispered the address, but she kept saying, “What? What? I can’t hear you. Can you speak louder, please?”

The 911 system probably showed her my number, but the cell phone number had no connection with this address. I repeated the address as loud as I could in a whisper, but two shots blasted the back yard. Something thunked into the tree beside us. I yanked the t-shirt down and shoved Tasha away from the tree. She didn’t cry out in pain, but her little gasps told me she was hurting.

The gun in my waistband shifted and slithered down my backside. I groaned. Now I had a weapon, a loaded
weapon,
inside
my baggy sweatpants. How come none of those guys on TV ever had this problem?

But I hadn’t time to search for the gun now. Behind another tree, I did the T-shirt maneuver and punched in 911again. Same voice answered. I whispered the address. She informed me there was a penalty for misusing 911. I gave up,
then had one more idea. Officer DeLora! Stretching the t-shirt to its limit so I could see the contact list, I found her name and punched the call
button. She answered.

“This is Ivy—” I whispered frantically.

Another shot. This one sizzled right past my ear.

“I heard something!” Officer Delora yelled. I scrunched the phone up close to my chest to muffle the sound of her voice. “Was that a gunshot?”

“Yes! We need
help!”

Clomping, creaky noises came from over near the hedge. Sam finding his way through the gate? Another shot, and my shaky fingers dropped the phone. No time to look for it now. Sam wasn’t worrying about being quiet and sneaking up on us. He was just shooting. The next blast took out an innocent chunk of tree bark.

“Let’s get over behind the shop,” I whispered to Tasha. “Lean on me.”

We edged in the direction of the shop. At least where I thought the shop might be. Then a noise tinkled above us. A rising crescendo of tinkles.

I groaned again. The wind chimes Erik had strung along the tree branch! I was short enough to go under them but Tasha had clunked right into them. A domino effect as one set of wind chimes collided with another set until they were all in motion. A pleasantly musical sound, but in this situation a deadly arrow of noise pointing directly at us.

Sam was running now, his footsteps hitting the ground like small earthquakes. The wind chimes tinkled merrily, never minding that they were guiding a killer straight to us. An
oof
and
curse
when Sam sideswiped a tree. I stumbled over something metallic on the ground. Too big to use as a weapon, too small to use as a shie
ld—

A thunk and
boing!

Silence.

No gunshots, no yells, no thundering footsteps. What was Sam doing now? Sneaking up on us?

We waited long minutes . . . or maybe it was only long seconds. Finally Tasha whispered, “What happened?”

The back door flew open, and an oblong of light flooded out, illuminating tree trunks and wheelbarrow and silhouette of purple cow. I ducked back. Grandma was loose, and looking for us!

I peered around a tree trunk for a better look. No, not Grandma.

“Tammy, where are you?” Eric yelled. Under stress, he’d reverted to her real name. “Are you out here?”

Something moved behind him. This time it
was
Grandma. An on-the-loose Grandma sneaking up on him with that cast-iron frying pan I’d left on the stove after making my grilled cheese sandwich.

“Eric, watch out!” I yelled.

Grandma clobbered him with the frying pan. I’d have gone down like an anchor in a bathtub from the blow, but on wall-of-muscle Eric the hit had about as much effect as a bug on a windshield. He turned and grabbed her, lifting her off her feet as if she were no more than a bug herself. She screeched and dropped the frying pan, and Eric yelled, “Tammy!” again.

Tasha had been on the verge of collapsing, but Eric’s voice strengthened her. She stumbled around the purple cow toward him, her gait lopsided with one shoe missing.

I ran toward the doorway behind her . . . and floundered over something beside the purple cow that Tasha had managed to miss. I sprawled head-first on the ground. The gun whacked my backside.

I shook my head to clear the instant fuzziness and then I saw what I’d fallen over.

Sam. That
boing
I’d heard was Sam running headlong into the purple cow.

Was he dead? I fumbled around his beefy neck for a pulse. No, not dead, but out cold.

Beware the purple cow.

Right message on that fortune cookie . . . but, blessedly, a message meant for someone other than me!

I snatched up Sam’s gun. So now I had two guns. One in my hand and one flopping around inside my sweat pants. Both as useless to me as a couple of kiwi fruit.

Tasha reached the doorway. Eric still had one arm wrapped around a kicking, squirming Grandma, but he reached for Tasha with the other arm. Then he stopped short.

“You’re bleeding!” he gasped.

Oh, no. Grandma and a frying pan couldn’t take Eric out, but a bleeding Tasha could. He’d go down like a sack of turnips when he saw all that blood.

I stood there, momentarily frozen.
An Eric apt to faint any moment in front of me. A Sam apt to rise up and attack any moment behind me.
A Grandma smack in the middle of everything and screeching her head off. A useless gun trapped inside my sweat pants.

Eric let go of Grandma. She landed on her knees. He bent over. Oh, oh, there he goes—

But he didn’t. With Tasha needing him, he conquered his weakness at sight of blood. He gave a mighty shake of shoulders, swooped her up in his arms and yelled, “I’m taking her to the emergency room.”

He turned and disappeared into the house. Grandma struggled to her feet. She might be little, but she was dangerous. Bluff time.

“Okay, don’t move,” I said with as much authority as I could muster as I walked toward her. “I have the gun now.” Going back to that good old standard line of TV and mystery novel scenes, I said, “Put your hands up.”

I half expected Grandma to ignore the command and tackle me, but she put her hands up. After a tangle with a junk-sculpture chandelier and a lifting by muscular Eric, she was a little worse for wear. A rip decorated her pants leg, and her hair still dripped vegetable-medley sauce. I sidled into the kitchen, hoping I looked like I knew what I was doing with the gun. Although having that second gun slapping around my backside was a bit distracting.